I can't find any data about the cooling capacity, whether it's 110W or 210W. But it also depends on how high water temperature you accept and how much above room temperature that is.

ehird wrote:

i7 CPU = 140W TDPGTX 295 = 289WTotal = 429W

I wouldn't expect the water cooling to have to handle that much power. Especially the graphics can be expected to dissipate some heat to the surroundings, and not just to the water. That holds even more true if you use a water block that only cover the GPUs.

Two Reserators should provide sufficient cooling though. The question is how to hook them up, since the GPUs can handle considerably higher temps than the CPU.
With all components mounted into a single loop you will get good load balance and a smooth temperature curve.
With separate loops for graphics and CPU you will reach higher maximum temperature for the graphics but keep the CPU cooler.

As long as temps are stable I'm fine. But what kind of headroom would I have? Probably not enough to, say, upgrade to a beefy SLI, right? With a reappropriated car/whatever radiator I'd have headroom though, unless I'm mistaken.

With the example hardware: None.
Cooling can, when required, be vastly improved by having a fan blow air onto the Reserator(s).

As an example Innovatek list their "Konvekt-O-Matic" radiators as capable of cooling 128W/180W respectively in passive mode.
Adding the "Booster" 12v fan, running it @5V, will double the cooling capacity. Source

Really? Maybe for those but Reserator reviews show a fan only helping a few degrees.

A few degrees is what it's all about!5 centigrade difference with 1 kg of water represents the water holding 20 kJ less energy. Remember that the water temperature shouldn't be more than some 20 degrees above room temperature, so a few degrees represent a significant change to that.

The given capacity for radiators is to keep the computer just cool enough. Add more heat and it might overheat.

ehird wrote:

Would there be any obstacle to using a beefy, non-computer radiator for this?

Not from a cooling point of view! In fact, if I were to get water cooling myself I'd most probably use a wall mounted radiator of some type meant for heating rooms. (Requires a bit more tubing and makes the computer stationary though.)

You've never mentioned using two graphics cards.
The GF GTX 295 use/need a specialised cooling block since it's two cards sandwiched.
If you plan to use two of those in SLI then there might be a need for extra cooling, but the second card won't put up as much heat as the first one.

What I meant for use with a single graphics card was either to make two completely separate loops; one with CPU (and NB, if desired) and one with the graphics card, or to put both into one loop; 1st Reserator - 2nd Reserator - GPU - NB - Graphics - (1st Reserator).

Unless you run some distributed computing scheme (like [email protected]) that keeps the GPU constantly busy, or have a high room temperature, you should be fine.
During longer and intense gaming sessions it might run a bit warmer than you like, but then it's just a simple matter of having some fan blow a little air at it to keep it cool.

(The dissipation capacity is below the maximum load from your computer, but the thermal inertia should even things out as long as the average load over a couple of minutes is lower.)

I always thought that the reserator 1/2's heat disserpation would be equal to the ambient temp, so if you use a table fan point it towards the reserator or just wait for winter for the lower ambient temps

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